Friday Morning Rainbows, Friday Night Lights

I saw this rainbow on the walk to work Friday. It was just the thing I need after a crappy week.

I just thought I'd follow up my last post with a more positive one, since I kind of left things with me wanting to move back to the States.

The school administration finally got things all figured out, and all my bio kids have changed their schedules (which they were NOT happy about) so they can be in Abby's 2nd and 6th period Bio classes (instead of my 3rd and 5th). After that happened, it was a little easier to handle the whole "they took all my good kids" situation. My new 3rd period Earth and Space kids are mostly kids I didn't have before, which kind of sucks, because it's like the first two weeks of school all over again. On Thursday they seemed totally bored, and it was killing me. All my other classes were really into my lecture (or at least pretended to be and actually participated), but my 3rd period just sat and stared at me, and hardly said a word. It was excruciating to get through that class. It reminded me of when I'd have a real dud of an audience for one of my Park Service talks. Only I am going to have these kids every day for the next 9 months. So that was rough. Plus, instead of giving me another Earth and Space, they gave me some of Wayne's (another teacher here) Marine Science kids for 5th period. Wayne is an awesome Marine Science teacher; it's kind of his thing. So he didn't want to give up these kids, these kids didn't want to come to me, and I didn't want them. So it made for a pretty awful transition.

HOWEVER! Friday was much, much better. I still miss my bio kids a lot. But my third period class was actually sort of into what they were doing, and my 5th period seemed to be okay with me after all. So things are looking up.

A couple of seniors have asked me to help them with their college applications and also with their ASVAB tests (A LOT of Samoans go into the military). I was pretty excited that they asked me for help. So I've spent a lot of today looking up how you can get SAT fee waivers and what scholarships are out there for Samoans and Pacific Islanders. I've only known these kids for three weeks and I'm already super invested in their future, lol.

On Friday night, Quinn and I went to the football game, Leone Lions vs the Tafuna Warriors. (Or as my students call them, the Kafuga Warriors. In Samoan, the t and k are interchangeable and the n and g are too, so Tafuna is the same as Kafuga, but one is less respectful and it's this whole confusing thing, don't ask.)

The football game was really fun...much better than last week.




(This pic is from last week. I have 45 and several of the players on the field. I love the hand holding!)

My students are always really excited when I show up for their events, which is one of the reasons I make a point to. As soon as I got into the gate, one of my fave students on the Varsity team started jumping up and down and shouting my name, just in case I didn't see him waving at me. I'm thinking, "Dude. You are 18 feet tall. I see you." lol. It makes me feel happy that they are so excited to see me.

Anyway, the Varsity game was really good, especially the first half. Tafuna scored first, but then we came back and at the half things were still looking pretty good. It went downhill in the middle and the final score was 36-16. Which sounds bad, but the game was actually much better than the score leads one to believe. There were a couple of awesome drives on our side that were THISCLOSE to touchdowns, so it was all pretty exciting. Me being me, I was way into it, jumping up and down like a maniac. Just like I do for Steelers games. And Astros games. And the Olympics. And family volleyball games. Whatever. Lol.

So, yeah, we lost, but it was a good game. Our offense actually showed up this week, which is a marked improvement over last week against Samoana. Our turnoevers are killing us, though there was this one amusing incident where we threw an interception and Tafuna got the ball, and then on the very next play they fumbled and we got the ball back in much better field position that we had before we threw the interception. Which is not really a strategy I think we should pursue. We definitely need to work on our passing game, but I am hopeful for the season.

I think my favorite part of the games is when the random dogs just trot across the football field right in the middle of the game. It amuses me to no end. Football and stray dogs. That is American Samoa.



I will say, it is a whole new experience to be up in the stands and have your boys out there playing. If one of my guys got hurt, I'd be freaking out and tearing up. And if one of my guys did something good, I'd turn to Quinn and be like, "I have him in such and such class." Lol. Such a mom.

Also, at the game, we got to see Kasey, Lauren and Peter, who bravely came over to the Leone side for a bit, while wearing their "There is only one Warrior" Tafuna shirts. (Which, WHATEVER.) So, even though they were the enemy, it was great to see them and catch up. I feel like we never see each other since we are all at different schools. We didn't get to see them after the game, because Quinn and I have taken to riding the school bus home with the football team, which is a whole other experience. We just sit there in the front seat as all these sweaty Samoan football players file on, and it's all, "Hi, Miss Amber. Hi, Miss Quinn" from everyone that gets on the bus. Seriously, they are sometimes so freaking adorable, these students of mine. Of course, sometimes I want to throw my eraser at their head, so you know. It all evens out. Lol.

Anywho. Not much happened today. I just kind of chilled at home and had a me day. Got some cleaning done, finally say Die Hard for the first time ever. It rained like crazy today, and it was this insane sideways rain, probably a little bit like what the poor ol' East Coast is getting hit with right now from that hurricane.

I'm a little out of the loop here in the middle of the ocean, but I did hear about that hurricane, and also the earthquake. So then I got curious, and I looked it up, and it turns out that while it's all very shocking that Virginia had an earthquake, its really not unheard of. After all, the Appalacians are mountains. And mountains don't form in the most geologically stable of places.

And as it turns out, just last week, there were 16 earthquakes in the Tongan Trench, which is the part of the ocean right in between here and Tonga. So that's comforting, if not entirely unexpected. I mean, I do live right in the Ring of Fire now. And Tutuila IS a volcanic island. It's all very unstable. And I find all this stuff fascinating and could go on for hours, but I shall not, because you did not come to this blog to get a geology lesson.

I'll save that for my Earth and Space kids.